PRO FOOTBALL; NBC Gives Barber the Ball, and He Runs With It

By JOHN BRANCH

Published: February 14, 2007

Tiki Barber looked the way he usually does for news conferences in front of the cameras, wearing a tailored suit, a shaved head and a high-watt grin.

And, just like old times, he offered some criticisms of the Giants' coach.

With high polish and perfect lighting, Barber was introduced yesterday as NBC's newest big-name hiring and high-profile face at the network's offices at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan.

Barber signed a three-year contract worth roughly $6 million to work as a news correspondent for ''Today'' and as a studio analyst for the network's Sunday night N.F.L. broadcasts, taking over for Sterling Sharpe, who will not return.

But on the day that Barber was welcomed to NBC, he could not tear himself fully from the Giants. Slow to adapt to the past tense of his football career, he was quick to couch his criticism of Tom Coughlin, the hard-edged Giants coach, by noting the three Pro Bowl selections he earned under him.

Winning a championship, however, will require a softer approach, Barber said. The Giants finished 8-8 last season and lost in the first round of the playoffs.

''I think he has to start listening to the players a little bit, and come our way -- their way -- a little bit,'' Barber said. ''I don't know if you realize this, but we were in full pads for 17 weeks, and with the amount of injuries that we had, it just takes a toll on you. You physically don't want to be out there, when your body feels the way you do, in full pads.

''It probably doesn't have a really detrimental effect on how you practice or how you play. It does on your mind. And if you lose your mind in this game -- their game -- you lose a lot. That's something he has to realize. And I think he does.''

Coughlin, through a Giants spokesman, declined to comment.

Speculation that Coughlin would be fired at the end of last season began long after Barber revealed his intentions to retire and pursue a broadcasting career. Barber was asked yesterday if a coaching change would have led him to reconsider.

''I don't think so,'' he said. ''This decision was in my head a year ago. I came back because I looked at our talent and thought we could win a Super Bowl. Circumstances proved otherwise. Injuries -- when our stars aren't playing, it's hard to win.''

Barber said he did not know if he would have retired by now if he had played the past three seasons for a different coach. He will turn 32 in April, old in running back years.

''Coach Coughlin was nothing but great for me as a player,'' Barber said. ''But the grind took its toll on me, and really forced me to start thinking about what I wanted to do next. That's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. At least for me it is. Maybe not for the Giants because they lose one of their great players, but for me it is.''

One Giants player who is not yet great, quarterback Eli Manning, will be a stronger leader next season simply because he will have to be, Barber said.

''He gets put in a very difficult position in this city because they expect him to be his brother,'' Barber said, referring to Colts quarterback Peyton Manning. ''And he has to live up to all these expectations. And no matter how much he says he doesn't think about them, it obviously creeps into his head.''

Barber's stint with ''Today'' will begin April 16. But he could not help beginning his football analyst role immediately, answering questions about his Giants career.

''These last couple of years in particular have been a dichotomy in some ways,'' Barber said. ''I became an all-star player, I became one of the elite players in this league, but at the same time the grind started to take its toll on me. And the principles of our head coach started to take its toll on me, so I started looking for the next thing.''

It is precisely the uncensored version of Barber that is attractive to Dick Ebersol, the NBC Sports chairman.

Barber officially retired as a Giants running back on Monday, and among the memories he created were a pair of stabs at Coughlin. Barber criticized Coughlin after a loss in the playoffs in January 2006 and again last fall. Their relationship was both professional and uneasy.

''It's very rare that you find an athlete at the top of his game who has been as open as Tiki has been,'' said Ebersol, who later compared Barber's potential to that of the golf analyst Johnny Miller, unafraid to anger players with honesty.

''And if you're that open before you come, that sort of answers that age-old question: Well, are you going to be prepared to speak to your new constituency, which is the viewers and the fans? Or are you going to still be worried about who is behind you in the locker room? I think he's answered the question repeatedly, while he was in the game.''

Equally eager to have Barber in the fold were the NBC Universal president and chief executive, Jeff Zucker, and the NBC News president, Steve Capus, who shared the stage with Barber and Ebersol. The ''Today'' co-host Matt Lauer, a good friend of Barber's, watched from the front row.

Barber will contribute reports to ''Today'' on a broad range of nonsports topics. He will not, as has been rumored, become an anchor for the fourth hour of ''Today,'' when it expands from its three-hour format in September.

''You'll see him all through the program at any given time on any given morning,'' Capus said. ''And I think he'll just light up the screen.''

EXTRA POINTS

The Giants released Chad Morton, who was 14th in the league in punt-return average and tied for 30th in kickoff returns in 2006. Morton, 29, injured his knee in the second-to-last game of the season and had surgery. On Monday, the Giants released three other key players: tackle Luke Petitgout and linebackers LaVar Arrington and Carlos Emmons.

Photo: Tiki Barber, the former Giants running back and a new ''Today'' news correspondent and NBC football analyst, meeting the news media. (Photo by Keith Bedford for The New York Times)(pg. D3)